Category Archives: Lower Key Stage 2 Blog

Stanley Marvel may be the clumsiest clot in Megaville, but he lives an ordinary life. That is until it’s turned upside-down when he discovers that local hero, The Candy King, is actually a super-villain determined to rule the world! As the sugary charlatan and his mad minions enslave the citizens with hypnotic gobstoppers and a giant remote control, Stan knows Megaville is in need of a Superhero. But when his crazy Gran and her crumbly chums reveal an earth-shattering secret, Stan’s shocked to discover his own true identity! With a dose of secret formula and a pair of fantastic elastic anti-gravity pants, Stanley Marvel takes to the skies as the greatest superhero the world has ever known. Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it’s Superstan – a caped crusader fighting for truth, freedom and justice with his super powers, super tights and the strength to open a really tricky jar of pickles! Can Superstan crush The Candy King and save the planet? Find out in this funtastic adventure as our hapless superhero flies by the seat of his pants, faster than a speeding paper aeroplane, and learns that with great power comes great hilarity!

Below are the songs for this production for you to listen to and practise:

The children in Year 3/4 have been busy this week investigating reflective materials as part of our new Bright Lights topic. They had great fun using their torches to learn about what makes a material most reflective. Watch as Sophie and Jessica explain their learning, with help from Rayhan.

Our topic in maths this week has been Shape, Space and Measure and the children have been getting involved with lots of “hands on” activities to help them with their learning. Miss Lewis’ Maths group were using toothpicks and marshmallows to build 3D shapes and investigate their properties!

In Miss Ford’s class children have been learning about Reflective Symmetry and have created some fantastic symmetrical designs using objects from around the classroom.

Meanwhile, Miss Saunders’ class have been investigating the perimeter of rectangles. They used cocktail sticks to make as many rectangles as they could with the same perimeter!

Spanish continues in full flow and the children are loving learning the new language – it’s great to see their enthusiasm and watch their confidence grow.

Lights, camera, action! Rehearsals for our upcoming production of ‘Let Loose’ will begin this week – just a reminder that children need to have their scripts and song lyrics in school with them every day. The children have got off to a great start with learning the songs and now we are very much looking forward to getting the acting underway now! We know you have been working very hard with your children to help them learn their lines and we are very grateful for this – thank you! We would really appreciate your continued support with this as the performance dates will be here before we know it!

This week year 3 have been learning how to play a ukulele. Children went for learning how to handle it correctly, to make some beautiful musical phrases looking at rhythm, pace and composition. By the end of the lesson children were even able to play a small song together.

This morning was the teachers’ chance to get their own back and wake the children up with a knock on their door bright and early! We were greeted by lots of bleary eyed children, unlike yesterday morning! Once we had all packed and had eaten our second full English breakfast of the trip, we were on our way to our first activity …

Circus Skills – This was a great hands-on activity where the children got to experiment with a variety of different circus items, including juggling balls, plate spinning, flower sticks and diablos. It was met with bags of laughter and enthusiasm as children learnt new tricks from the instructors and from each other. The plate spinning was definitely a challenge outside on top of a hill…in the wind! Miss Lewis mastered the art in the end and was having great fun spinning plates and juggling like a clown – maybe she could join the circus?

Fencing – On guard! Dressed head to toe in white, the children were given an hour and a half crash course in the art of fencing. They learnt how to attack safely, and how to protect themselves as well. They also learnt how to great their opponent before a duel and how to score points in a match. The session ended with a duelling competition, where the children’s competitive sides came out and their quick footwork was put to the test!

After lunch, we loaded all of our luggage back onto the coach and the instructors held a ceremony where they presented each child with a certificate. This was a really nice touch and reinforced how proud we all were of all of the children for what they had achieved. Although exhausting, it was a pleasure to take away a group of children who were all so sensible, well-behaved and mature. The staff at JCA were full of compliments about how well-mannered our children were; they did themselves and Beechwood proud –well done Year 4 and thank you for a fantastic 3 days. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Today was another fabulous day. We were all up bright and early (some awake before 5am!) and the children enjoyed filling their bellies with a full English breakfast – the hash browns were a definite highlight for Mrs Reece!

Sensory trail – This crazy activity involved the children navigating their way through a wet, muddy and uneven forest whilst blindfolded and holding onto a guide rope (easy right?). The children thoroughly enjoyed this excuse to slide along the ground on their bellies through the mud as they climbed through giant tyres and other obstacles that were put in their way…and the teachers took great pleasure in adding to the mud with extra buckets of water! Great fun was had by all…. apart from the children’s clothes!

Abseiling – This one was definitely not one for the feint hearted! Again, we were incredibly impressed by the children’s determination to conquer their nerves and complete their abseil, in spite of the dizzying heights of the tower. So many of the children were up and down the wall like Spiderman, it was great to see how fearless they were. We are really proud of them all for cheering each other on and for giving it a shot. Even if they didn’t manage to complete their abseil, the children should all be extremely proud of themselves for trying!

Katacanoeing – This was a leisurely afternoon trip down the river for the teachers…not so leisurely for the children though, who definitely worked up an appetite rowing up and down the river against strong winds! (There were certainly a few sore arms the next morning!) Great team work skills were seen in this activity and the children kept in good spirits singing rowing songs….even when Miss Lewis’s canoe ended up rowing into the reeds along the side of the river – oops!

After another hearty dinner on day on Thursday evening, we were back outside wrapped up warm ready for some songs and marshmallow toasting around the campfire. The children showcased some impressive talents in the campfire talent show (Lights, camera, action!)….but we all agree the highlight had to be Mr Pownall’s passionate but somewhat out of tune rendition of Robbie Williams’ ‘Angels’ – I don’t think the children have ever laughed so much! After a very full on day and evening, the children certainly slept well!

The first day was a great success. The children loved exploring their rooms and knocking on their neighbours door. The competition for tidiest room had already begun with the girls unpacking and ensuring their clothes were in neat piles and the boys unpacking with their clothes in …… bundles. Once we had all enjoyed our special lunches that had been made for us by are anxious parents we were fuelled and ready to go.

The children were soon back outside being introduced to the JCA instructors who would be with them for the next 3 days. In no time at all, the ice was broken and the children had learnt a number of different ‘Repeat after me’ songs (which they could recite word for word by the end of the trip!) and had found their voices in true JCA style – Roars of “Are you ready?”… “WE WERE BORN READY!”…. and ”Get it?” “ GOT IT!” filled the air! Group names sorted and team chants perfected, they were ready to tackle their first activity…

Our first activity was the climbing wall and the children were already impressing us with their fearless, ‘can do’ attitude. Every child should be very proud of what they achieved during this activity as they all went further than they thought they would, with a large number reaching the summit. Even the teachers did a great job of overcoming their fears and racing up the wall – Mrs Baskerville and Miss Lewis were treated by a rendition of “Let it Go” as they climbed – charming!

After all that climbing we were ready for our dinner, and had certainly earned it. The children’s (and Mr Pownall’s) eyes lit up when they saw the selection on offer, along with the vast amount of food they were served up and this was before pudding was revealed to them.

With a warm dinner in our tummies we ready to head out into the cold to play ‘egg protector’ which consisted of the children having to use a range of materials to protect their egg from breaking. Once they were all having fun and had completed this the children had a range of challenges to complete but the losing teams’ egg would be kicked around in its protector. Chaos ensued! It is quite incredible how long a group of children will happily play games and try to destroy each other’s eggs on a cold evening. As predicted, the game ended with egg flying everywhere and sadly no eggs were still intact.

We are really impressed with how the children have settled back into school life after a lovely two weeks off. They appear recharged and ready to go. This week we had the book fair at school and the children were very excited to explore the books on offer. Don’t forget to come to the fair and see the brilliant range of books you can buy to encourage your child to read at home.

This week we also started to plant our class vegetable plots. We spent some time weeding and preparing the ground before planting our first batch of vegetables. We are looking forward to seeing these grow over time and are keen to improve our green finger skills.

Well we hope you are ready to be blown away by the year 3/4 production. The last two weeks have been full of rehearsals and the hard work is paying off. We would like to thank all the parents who have helped us collect props and those who have been creative with their child’s costume as this really has made all the difference.

This week was also parents evening and it was an absolute pleasure to have the opportunity to reflect on the progress your children have made over the year. We loved seeing how proud you all are of your children. Don’t forget if you ever have anything you wish to discuss you can book an appointment to speak to your class teacher or team leader (Mrs Reece) at any time.

We look forward to seeing you next week for the children’s production of Snow White!

This week has mainly been taken up with rehearsals for our up-coming production. Most the children are doing a fantastic job and taking on advice on
how to improve their performance.

Mrs Timbers has been an excellent role model for the children and has really bought out some of their dramatic personalities.

We would like to thank all the parents who have been working with their children on improving their performance but also like to remind those who do not yet know their lines that time is running out. We hope you are looking forward to seeing your wonderful children shine in this show.

In this area we will be giving you the highlights of the week to keep you up to date with what the children are getting up to.

This week year three and four have been getting green fingered. We have been investigating the conditions needed for seed germination. We are all hoping our investigations are a success and we learn what a seed needs to germinate.

Linked to our up coming production of Snow White, we have started learning about play scripts in English. We are very pleased with the production to date but the children desperately need to know all their lines by heart so please support your child with this.

It would be wonderful if you could also discuss with them how they can make their acting more dramatic!

At Beechwood we are always doing something interesting, previously it was the Titanic however this time we wanted to do something more hands on!

Today we are helping to save the River Kennet, supported by Ark – a charity dedicated fighting water pollution. Children in year 3/4 have been given the task of hatching 120 trout eggs, and in the process also finding out where our food comes from.

In the wild just 1 out of 100 eggs survive predators and pollution to become an adult fish, so it is not an easy task for any budding Nemo’s! Children have to understand the importance of keeping the water (and rivers!) clean, otherwise our fish wouldn’t survive. They also need to carefully monitor the temperature (fish don’t like hot showers, but prefer a rather chilly 10 degrees!), and the tank must stay dark and calm.

(Young fish are the shy retiring types – and normally hatch under stones away from currents and sunlight).

At first several eggs didn’t survive and had to be carefully removed, however under the children’s careful watch over 50 eggs have hatched, and are now wriggling around eating their egg sacks. Exciting news but it is not over yet as tomorrow we need to start feeding them to help them grow into a young fish that can survive in the wild.

By the time we let them go into the wild they will be 10cm long, and will eventually grow to be over 3 times that size!

So tomorrow when you are having dinner, think of the struggles your poor fish has endured to make it to your plate!

It has been a great experience for the children to see the changes and the stages on the life cycle of a trout and how hard it is for some creatures to survive if we don’t look after their environment. We are planning to release them back into the river in around 6 weeks to increase the declining number of fish in the river.